


Wooden

by abluevixen (knightofbows)



Series: | January 2016 Prompt Challenge | [30]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Emissary!Stiles, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Married Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Monster of the Week, alpha!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6288406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofbows/pseuds/abluevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is <em>not</em> how Stiles imagined his wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wooden

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I use a combination of Teen Wolf and Supernatural lore for this monster.
> 
> Please be advised:  
> Content/Trigger Warning:  
> blood; violence; gore

“This is not how I imagined my wedding day!”

No, running through the preserve in a half-haze was not Stiles’ idea of a romantic union. Beside him, Derek huffed a laugh around his descended fangs.

“You had your wedding yesterday!” he said, though there was humor in his growl.

Unimpressed, Stiles scoffed. “ _A_ wedding was yesterday, but it wasn’t _my_ wedding.” When one of their pursuers roared immediately behind them, Stiles tumbled through the brush, instinctively tucking and rolling away from Derek. The wendigo sailed through the space Stiles’ head previously occupied, and crumpled hard in a failed landing.

Derek took the opening, roared and lunged, using his superior skill and strength to pin the wendigo down. He tore into its chest cavity. How the sternum collapsed beneath his blow and the crack of shattering ribs was loud and sharp, audible even over Stiles’ heavy breathing and thundering heart. The wolf’s eyes flared their thrilling, terrifying scarlet as he littered the forest floor with wendigo entrails.

Stiles smirked as he emerged from his hastily taken cover, nonplussed by the blood and gore covering Derek’s face and claws, the mess on the ground. “Guess we make our stand here?” He rubbed absently at his chest and hoped Derek would agree.

“Thinking maybe we should lead them a bit further away,” Derek sighed. He straightened from where he straddled the wendigo corpse, then wiped his brow with the back of his wrist where there was less blood. It smeared his face despite his efforts.

Stiles brushed off some leaves clinging to his shirt and looked back the way they came. His heart pounded, and he couldn’t slow it down, couldn’t find his center. It made him dizzy, like an inner-ear infection, and twisted his stomach. Magic simmered beneath his skin, the bond to his alpha incomplete and unstable. Derek worried—he could _sense_ it, even if he couldn’t _scent_ it—and felt the weight of his gaze between his shoulder blades. After a few heartbeats, Stiles said, “Not as far as you’d probably like.”

“Why?” Derek asked, quick to _accommodate_ , not challenge.

Stiles noticed and smiled.

“What’s the matter?”

“Can’t you feel it?” Stiles asked, brow pinched. He walked to a nearby tree and leaped into the air, grabbing a low-hanging branch, thick, but not too much. He tugged it with his weight, swinging awkwardly until the wood cracked. If they were going to fight, he needed a weapon. “We’re tethered to the Nemeton until the ritual is complete,” he grunted between yanks. “You won’t be effected too much, but—”

“How bad will it hurt you?” Derek asked. He leaped and grabbed Stiles’ branch, bringing it and his emissary down with a brutal snap.

Stiles and the branch fell in a heap. He stood with a groan, rubbing where he surely bruised his hip. “Damn, Der. Warn a guy.”

Snarling echoed through the woods.

Derek scanned the area, then returned his gaze to Stiles. “How bad will leaving the Nemeton hurt you?” the wolf pushed, eyes blazing. He pressed close into Stiles’ space and clasped his hip gently. He absorbed his pain, and Stiles’ appreciative moan made him smirk—Stiles felt it pressed against his hairline. “Stiles, please.”

“When you say it so nicely…” Stiles teased. Derek responded with only a deeper, more worried frown; so Stiles’ grin faded, and he averted his gaze. “There’s noise in my head,” he admitted softly. Rubbing his elbow, he shied away from Derek’s touch; his magic guided avoidant steps back toward the Nemeton, away from safety. “I can’t concentrate. My magic is, um, it’s unstable and...sparking.” He sighed. His eyes burned, not like tears, and he knew they glowed with magic not quite under his control. “I can’t go much further. I’m already becoming a liability,” he said, gesturing to the dead wendigo. “I can hardly focus, Der.”

Derek hummed. “Then we go back,” he murmured, nodding decisively.

Stiles’ eyebrows rose. “Back toward the wendigoes?” he asked. “Are you serious? There were, like, at least twelve.”

“Eleven,” Derek corrected, tilting his head toward the corpse.

“Eleven,” Stiles repeated on a breath. “Eleven.” He laughed.

“We’ve faced worse,” Derek argued gently. When he reached for Stiles’ hand, Stiles reached back and, smiling, Derek twirled the ring on his finger. A gold band, the one he’d given Stiles the day before, with their friends and family gathered for the ceremony. “Then, we’ll finish the ritual.”

Nearing snarls forced Stiles’ decision. With a put-upon sigh, he rolled his eyes, briefly squeezed Derek’s hand, and said, “Fine, I guess.” Then, he picked up the broken branch and pulled a small knife from his pocket. “Hold ‘em off for a bit, will ya?”

“Of course,” the wolf agreed. He pressed a bloody kiss to Stiles’ temple, then shifted. Despite the countless times he’d witnessed it in the past, watching Derek transform never ceased to fascinate Stiles. How his neat beard thickened and fluffed, how his ears elongated, how his brow thickened. With the change in his appearance came a change in his stance: the wolf instinctively lowered Derek’s center of gravity and coiled his muscles. Even there with Stiles, Derek was ready to fight. “Don’t be long,” he said around his fangs.

“Wouldn’t want you to have all the fun,” Stiles drawled. Before Derek could turn to leave, however, he grabbed his bloody shirt and held him fast to kiss him properly. Stiles didn’t care about the blood or the fangs. He hummed where Derek growled, and it was perfect.

Derek stole a last peck before dashing off into the dark.

Wendigoes hungered for human flesh, but Stiles hoped a raging alpha werewolf would prove enough of a distraction to buy Stiles some time.

Alone, he heaved a breath, then started quickly raking the blade of his knife across the tip of the branch. He spun the wood with one hand, whittled away layers of bark with the other, and a point soon emerged. It wasn’t long before he heard Derek’s roar, pitched in pain, and decided his spear was sharp enough. With his knife, he carved a series of runes down the spear’s length, the movements of his hand and the gouging blade swift, practiced movements. They were as familiar to him as his signature. Then, he sliced the flat of his thumb, and pressed a bloody print to each of the runes. The wood hummed with its newly infused Druid magic, vibrating like a harp string in his hand.

He twirled it a few times like a bow staff—it was perfectly balanced. He swung it with all his strength into its mother tree—it was unbreakable.

Stiles ran back towards the Nemeton, and Derek.

He found the alpha in a clearing, in the midst of what had surely been an ambush. Their ravenous hunger typically consumed wendigoes, but they weren’t always entirely enslaved to it. Sometimes they could think. Sometimes they could plan.

Derek fell beneath the weight of a pouncing wendigo, and Stiles rushed the last several yards separating them. He swung up with his wooden spear to knock it away from the wolf, who tumbled aside and leapt to his feet, then heaved the spear through its chest. Blood splattered with its sputtering death throes, but Stiles channeled a burst of magic through the weapon to silence the creature. He yanked his spear from his victim’s chest just in time to spin around and jab it through the abdomen of another. With a grunt of effort and another surge of magic, he flung the body away to let it bleed out in the dark.

With a vicious bark, Derek grappled a wendigo to the ground, and plunged his fist into its chest. Even as it clawed and trashed, bloodying the wolf’s arms and stomach, Derek bared his fangs, flashed his eyes, and crushed its heart. He rose to his feet caked with wendigo slop before launching himself in Stiles’ direction. Stiles spun around just in time to see Derek collide with the pouncing wendigo that targeted him. They tumbled out of Stiles’ line of sight, but he trusted Derek not to invoke the ‘’til death do us part’ aspect of their vows just yet.

Besides, he had his own problems.

Two wendigoes circled Stiles like a pair of dogs, their layers of shark-like teeth gleaned in the faint moonlight. Storm-cloud eyes watched him vacantly, hungrily. Stiles couldn’t see any intelligence in them, but they’d followed him and Derek into the woods and coordinated their attack on the Nemeton. Stiles spun his spear, and when three more wendigoes joined the soiree, he channeled his magic to force a clearing through their prowling.

“Come and get me, assholes,” he murmured, then darted through the opening he’d made.

The path to the Nemeton was clear. Its song drew his magic—and him as its vessel—through the trees and over fallen logs. It was a sixth sense that guided him back, a calling that quickened his pace and his reflexes, easily evading the wendigoes pursuing him. Each stride nearer to the Nemeton made him more powerful, strengthened his control over his power.

When the Nemeton was just in sight, Stiles stopped, chest heaving, and swung his spear around behind him. It connected with an assaulting wendigo, easily throwing it aside. A second attacked, and with his magic reinforcing his fists, Stiles grabbed it by the throat and crushed its wind-pipe. It slashed his face and arms before it went limp. Stiles dropped it.

“Stiles!”

“Derek?!”

The wolf stumbled into the clearing were Stiles made his stand, bloody and exhausted, and his knees buckled just shy of Stiles’ side. The three wendigoes chasing him slid to a halt just beyond the reach of Stiles’ spear and waited.

Six wendigoes, total, circled them.

“Come on, Sourwolf,” Stiles murmured. “On your feet.” He grabbed Derek by the elbow and helped him stand.

With a groan, Derek rolled his shoulders and struggled to find his balance. Though he healed quickly, wendigoes struck fast and cut deep. Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised if Derek’s weakness was more from blood loss than exhaustion or serious injury.

“Think we can take ‘em?” Stiles asked. He pressed close to his husband, and Derek gave his wrist a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“I’m not dying the day after our wedding,” Derek growled.

“Hey,” Stiles said, never taking his eyes off the stalking wendigoes. “I don’t plan on dying either. When I said I’d spend the rest of my life with you, I didn’t mean only the next thirty-six hours.”

Derek smirked, then took point without discussion. He healed faster and could take harder hits than Stiles. But Stiles, for his part, was not without his strengths. He pressed close at Derek’s back, spear ready between trembling hands. So near the Nemeton, he was steadier in his magic—his nerves were an entirely separate matter—and it pulsed from him in steady, threatening waves.

When a single, audacious wendigo attacked, the remaining five quickly followed, and Stiles and Derek were buried in a storm of slashing claws, gnashing teeth, and supernatural hunger. Derek roared just as loudly as the wendigoes. Stiles’ magic arced like lightning and crashed like thunder. Derek’s claws were as bloody as the tip of Stiles’ wooden spear, swung just as viciously to rend just as much flesh.

Stiles cried out when his arm was bitten, and Derek snapped the offending wendigo’s neck.

Derek snarled when claws hooked under his ribs, and Stiles crushed the wendigo’s skull with his spear before setting the body aflame.

They circled, back to back, as smoothly as their enemies circled them, and when the only circle left was a ring of wendigo corpses, Stiles and Derek stood alone in the carnage.

“Holy shit,” Stiles breathed. His knees gave out, and he slowly sank to the ground, leaning heavily on his spear. “Holy shit…”

“Told you we could do it,” Derek panted. He flopped gracelessly beside his husband, pressing close against his side. He took Stiles’ left hand and toyed with his wedding band, slick with wendigo blood. “Ready to finish the ritual?”

“Am I ready to bind myself to you, body and soul, from now until the end of time?” Stiles asked.

Smirking, Derek nosed Stiles’ temple. “Yeah,” he said. “That.”

Stiles hummed, then cupped Derek’s cheek to pull him into a messy kiss.

Derek kissed him back fervently, despite the blood that covered them both, giving a quiet whine before pulling away. He traced the edge of Stiles’ jaw, just shy of where wendigo claws raked his face. “You’ll need stitches,” he said softly.

Lightly batting his hand away, Stiles said, “Ritual first, stitches later. Come on. I need to stake my claim on a sexy werewolf before he slips out of my grasp.”

“You already have,” Derek answered. He ducked under Stiles’ arm to help him to his feet.

Though largely uninjured, his legs were still a bit shaky, so Stiles appreciated the support. “Well, maybe by human standards,” he agreed, nibbling lightly at Derek’s neck. “But we don’t live in an exclusively human world.”

When they stopped before the Nemeton, in the exact spot where they’d initially been attacked, he waggled his eyebrows and said, “Let’s get our soul-binding on.”

Derek laughed, then pulled him into another kiss.

Stiles’ magic consumed them.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


End file.
